4:22 PM

9
4:22 PM

     Sheriff Donnelly came back to the Department and could see that Agent Danley had gone a bit mad. There were files everywhere in some vain attempt to organize them.
     "Now don't be mad," Agent Danley said. "I wanted to arrange a few things in my mind, and I felt it was necessary to organize things a certain way."
     "No problem, agent. It's your investigation. I'm sure you have your process."
     The Sheriff paused for just a second.
     "Oh yeah, that address. I'm still waiting to hear back but any minute now."
     "You think we'll get this guy's phone records?"
     "Phone records, address, any other associated phone numbers and addresses, everything. Of course this guy could be unrelated, but then, he could be in handcuffs by the end of the night telling us why he did it."
     "Guy from the Texas Rangers have anything to say?"
     "He thought this guy was a person of interest. The head of the White Sands Baptist Church. He was going to go a bit more raidy than you did, but you got what he was looking for anyway. He said, 'good job.' I think he went to that seminary instead, see who there is to talk to."
     "They're out of session, I think."
     "Still got papers to grade, I'll bet."
     "Say, Sheriff, why don't you let me treat you to late lunch or early dinner. It's on the Department."
     "Yeah, alright."
     "So where to, then?"
     "Joe's Diner, I guess. Only other place unless you want to drive is the pizza place, and, well, I'm sick of that place."
     "Joe's Diner, it is."
     Agent Danley rode shotgun in Sheriff Donnelly's cruiser over.
     Inside, they made an order to go, and sat at the counter, chewing it over. They couldn't help but notice through their entire conversation, that an off-duty waitress kept looking over at them, but she said nothing. She looked to be counting money and looking through her tickets.
     "Well, I'm off," she said to the woman at the cash register.
     "See you tomorrow, Angela."
     "Bye."
     And she left.
     "You know her?"
     "A waitress here. I've seen her before."
     "I'm going to follow her."
     "What for?"
     "I don't know. Call it a hunch."
     "Agent Danley, did you ever just think, of letting it go?"
     "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I should just let her go. I mean, I can ask after her if she becomes important later."
     "Right, but after all, some people going going to look at you no matter what. Doesn't always mean something. Some women got a thing for a man in uniform. Of course, I don't know that that's it." He grinned. "But, whatever it is, I think it can wait and we can let that woman maybe worked a hard day, let her go on her way, as, so far as we can tell, she hasn't done anything wrong."
     "Yeah, Sheriff, yeah, you're right."
     But the farther the woman got beyond his grasp, the less able her was to cope with it. Something called to him, to follow her, to chase her down, to find out what she was hiding. But the Sheriff was right. Other than a sideways glance, what did he have to base that on?
     He just felt something immediate about chasing after her, something immediate enough to be worth whatever fallout would come afterwards. Instead, they just grabbed their food and went back to the Sheriff's Department, where Lieutenant Cantroux greeted them urgently.
     "They got an address."
     They all went inside and had a look at the map. It wasn't very far away.
     "Do we roll on it now, or do we wait for morning?"
     "Guy might be heavily armed. Sheriff, you sure you can't get a deputy or two here?"
     "Yeah, I could call Chip, see if he's feeling any better."
     "Three of us could take him."
     "Assuming he's alone, right? I think you should make a couple calls see if we can get some state troopers on the case."
     "Texas Rangers, sir."
     "You're right. Not State Troopers. Texas Rangers."
     The Sheriff cleared his throat. "This sounds like a job for my favorite two deputies: bright and early."
     "Let's hope you can scramble two other ones as well," Lieutenant Cantroux deadpanned.